Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

And who decides what constitutes "causing problems?"

While the vast majority of us (at least I hope so) would agree that violence and murder focused on a particular ethnic, religious or other group is a "problem," most other things have much less widespread support.

I have some fairly unpopular ideas, as well as some that are more readily accepted.

Should I be doxxed for expressing the thought that all drugs should be legal? For complaining vociferously about the business models of big social media companies?

In fact, it doesn't really matter what position I take on pretty much anything (vi vs. emacs, vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream, pandemic policies, etc., etc., etc.), there are those who will disagree -- sometimes with respectful argument/discussion, sometimes with hyperbole and personal attacks, and depending on the topic, even with violence.

There are some places in the US where criticizing Trump could get me ostracized, beaten or killed. And yet other places where taking the opposite position could have a similar effect.

The hundred or so Hong Kong journalists and activists that are sitting in jails for advocating that the government adhere to its own constitution are there because they were "causing problems."

And so I'll pose my question again: Who decides whether or not you, I or anyone else is "causing problems?"

Instead of banning anonymity (which is a ridiculous thing to do), platforms can provide better tools to allow users to curate content or join discussion rooms.

If you want some type of troll blocker to prevent spam accounts, you can use an anonymous crypto in junction with sign-up for a small fee that is inconsequential to a single user but painful at scale for users that generate many accounts.

Removal of anonymity will help to settle this one.

Please notice how I don't simply propose removal of anonymity as using real name in your online image. I am proposing a way to lose anonymity in exchange of overriding the management when you have a collusion.

I believe but cannot prove than most targeted advertising is fraudulant. When whistleblowers leak those metrics, this might be a self correcting problem.

Meanwhile...

There are plenty of other ways to run a business.

metafilter, craigslist, ravelery.org, others do well, without harming their users.

Yes and no. Anonymity also prompts people to make lots of assumptions about you based on what and how you say things that may not hold and may even distort how the messages are received.

For example, I'm an ethnic minority but if I break from certain aspects of identarian political dogma it is generally assumed that I am White. Women who deviate from a certain line on gender issues are, similarly, often assumed to be male unless they indicate otherwise. On issues where a person's lived experiences stemming from their identity might matter, the assumption of there being a 'default' identity ends up kind of polarizing perspectives and eliding nuances and potential middle-ground on a host of issues.

Put another way, it has been said that "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog." But not everyone defines themselves by their "dogness" to the same extent, nor does being a "dog" mean the same thing to all dogs. But since we assume everyone is a default template until they loudly and proudly fly an identifying marker, the only voices who speak for the dogs will be the doggiest of the doggy, the people whose identity as dogs is the most important thing to them in that moment.

Bringing that back to a concrete example, I remember when I first made the switch from Windows to Macintosh in the early aughts (in the peak of the Switch ad era). Initially making the switch was kind of a revelation. I had really just never experienced a computer that was well designed before nor technology that put this much attention towards--what I would later learn to refer to as--UI/UX. I could not stop evangelizing this to everyone who would listen because, to me, it was new and super cool and I was just really really enthusiastic about it. This happened often enough that Apple fanatics online got a reputation for being over-exuberant and kind of deluded. But the thing is, after a few years I just stopped posting about Apple stuff because I had grown into having more balanced and nuanced perspectives on computing. But the assumption in a place like Slashdot back then was that you're a Linux or Windows guy unless you state otherwise. Thus only the newly converted, over-excited Apple fanboys are taken as representative of Mac users and the ones with mellower perspectives are drowned out.

With computing platforms it's all rather frivolous and probably doesn't matter. But when it comes to social or political issues, this dynamic can have real effects on what we think of as an authentically [group] opinion and who gets to speak for whom. I think it has a tendency to foster a certain essentialist way of looking at the world that is rife with ecological fallacies.